Bitcoin Prices are Dropping

Well, that didn’t take long. One day after I wrote a post about the world’s most popular cryptocurrency and urged people to start mining, the largest Bitcoin exchange decided to suspend all withdrawals for an unknown length of time. The shocking news caused the price of Bitcoin to plummet significantly and it is now valued at $733.19.

Mt. Gox, the preferred Bitcoin trading platform for Bitcoin owners, says they had to temporarily shut down the service in order to resolves issues regarding withdrawal delays. A limited number of users have been complaining about the service for several months now and Mt. Gox is finally looking into the matter.

In a blog post, the company writes:

In our efforts to resolve the issue being encountered by various Bitcoin withdrawals, it was determined that the increase in the flow of withdrawal requests has hindered our efforts on a technical level. To understand the issue thoroughly, the system needs to be in a static state.

This isn’t the first time Mt. Gox has suspended trading and the fact that it has such a huge influence on the value of Bitcoin when other exchanges exist is worrisome to some Bitcoin owners.

This news couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Bitcoin network that has also been experiencing thefts involving its most reputable wallet service, Coinbase.

At least three Coinbase users have confirmed anywhere between $5,000 and $16,000 stolen from their accounts. Fortunately for customers using two-factor authentication, refunds can be issued. Those without the two-factor setup are out of luck.

Coinbase uses a complicated API key and since only a few members had their accounts compromised it’s believed not to be a system-wide problem. It’s more likely that these individual users had their accounts hacked by some clever thieves.

Depending on how you perceive the situation, it’s either time to get out of the mining business or stock up on Bitcoin. Historically, Bitcoin has been steadily increasing in value since its inception, but these recent setbacks coupled with countries outright banning the currency could spell trouble for the foreseeable future.

If you’re a risk-taker and have the guts, now seems to be the perfect opportunity to build your mining rig and get to work. With prices dropping and people panicking, investors could potentially make a lot of money if the price shoots back up.

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About Ivan Barajas

Ivan Barajas is a web editor at Newegg and contributor to the Unscrambled blog. When he's not writing about consumer electronics, you can find him on Twitter where he keeps a curated timeline of his favorite gadgets.